It was a scenario this week that brought Ms Bex to tears. The old man quickly walked out of the queue shaking his empty pockets and, before she could catch him to purchase him a meal, he had disappeared.

Ms Bex firmly believed the gentleman was a victim of the poverty crisis engulfing our elderly.

Many who’ve spent most of their working lives contributing to the economy, paying taxes and raising the next generation are now forced to survive on a pittance. An aged pension of a mere $273.40 a week.

Interest rates have gone up, the price of petrol has sky-rocketed and so with it the cost of food, yet treasurer Wayne Swan and prime minister Kevin Rudd barely made a token gesture in the latest budget for the men and women who’ve fought and worked for years to create the wealthy economy we now live in.

At 74, Ms Bex receives a part-pension herself, but she is a “lucky one” as she has savings earned from astute investment in real estate.

She sees others much worse off all around her.

“He just looked like an ordinary man, but he had no money for the milk,” she said.

“Many elderly people are doing it tough. I’m lucky I have a roof over my head, food in my stomach and I can pay the bills but I don’t know how pensioners who don’t have other income survive.”

Money – or lack there of – is not a subject most elderly like Mary Robinson like to talk about.

But Mrs Robinson admits she is battling to make ends meet on her $235 a week and she considers herself fortunate as her late husband made sure she had a roof over her head.

“He used the super to pay for the house, so at least I don’t have to worry about rent,” Mrs Robinson said.

There are other expenses though – like the upkeep of the car, paying for the fuel to get anywhere, insurances, rates, body corp, telephone, electricity. Never mind the cost of food.

In her younger years, when Mrs Robinson was a teacher’s aide and her husband Brian a music teacher, she never imagined one day she would be counting every penny.

“We’ve been paying taxes most of our lives and I never thought it would become like this,” she said.

Her $235 pension only goes so far, even with her food budget kept conservatively low at $70 a week and the extra bits she gets to help pay utilities and the telephone account.

She was already wondering how much longer she would be able to keep the car.

“It’s due for a service soon and I’ll have to find the extra money for that,” she said.

“My children are very good (in helping out), but I try not to take money from them.”

Buddina’s Dawn Teichmann, 77, knows exactly how Mrs Robinson feels.

Since her husband passed away 18 months ago she has been struggling to survive on a single pension.

“When he was alive we were both getting a pension so it wasn’t so hard. But when he died the amount of money coming in halved although the bills stayed the same.

“You still have to pay the rates, all the insurances and doing it on one pension is a lot different to two pensions.

“This is the message that needs to get across to the government, single pensioners are doing it hard, those paying rent are doing it harder still.”

Mrs Teichmann also considered herself “luckier than others” and said “pensioners are very proud sort of people, we don’t discuss that sort of thing (money)”.

“I know some people who are doing it much tougher. Some of them are no longer able to go on the trips (organised by the Kawana Community Centre) as they can’t afford it.”

She survives by “keeping a very tight budget”.

“I’m very strict. I write down every week exactly what I need and I don’t buy anything more than what I’ve got on the list.”

Ms Bex couldn’t help but wonder how our politicians became so out of touch with the daily reality of their parents’ generation.

“Mr Rudd, I’m disappointed in you,” she said.

Wayne Swan, himself, admitted he would find it very hard to survive on the pension. Yet thousands of others across the country are expected to.

Most of these people were not dole bludgers.

They belonged to young, working families who earned an average wage and paid their taxes expecting the government would look after them when the time came.

Now that they’re too old to carry on working, there is so little help.

The $273.40 maximum payment for aged pension (for singles) a week is not enough to cover the rent in most Sunshine Coast units and even with the extra $50 odd a week from rent assistance, and small payments for telephone allowance and utilities, it has to be wondered how people have been managing to survive.

Nick Duggan, of Duggan’s IGA in Maroochydore, is one businessman who decided months ago it wasn’t just up to the government to make a difference.

He took the initiative to offer pensioners a 10% discount and has also started a website listing other businesses doing the same.

“I believed I had a responsibility,” he said. “If the governments not doing anything then hopefully business can.”

Nambour’s Queen Street Meats has also risen to the challenge offering pensioners and hopefully with the launch of the Sunshine Coast Daily’s campaign to highlight businesses helping out the number will increase. The federal government owes it to our pensioners to give them back their respect and give them enough money to live on.

Give them enough money to be able to pay for their milk without having to face the embarrassment of begging.

But we all need to do our bit to help the elderly.

Because one thing in life is certain – we’re either going to get there too or die trying.